Steve Chadwick

Exploitable manganese deposits in the Cape Peninsular were known from around the late 1670s, and indeed many of our hikes pass on or close by manganese deposits of one kind or another.

Hike Kasteelpoort or Skeleton Gorge and you will walk over the stuff. At Mont Rochelle the link trail from Uitkyk  to the summit of Dutoitskop is known as The Manganese Trail.

Hike from Hout Bay East Fort and you will pass close by the old workings. Hike at Silvermine and take in the Noordhoek peak circuit, and you will be able to see far below you the stumps of the old manganese pier marked on Slingsby’s Silvermine map Jetty 1909. Slingsby…..accurate as usual.

East Fort (Dave Cowley)

If you hike around Kogelbai in the area of the camp site and tidal swim pool you will be next to out-crops of manganese. Whilst on towards Rooiels you will drive past old mine workings with even knowing it.

Manganese has many useful properties, and as such is a much sought after commodity.

The vast majority of manganese locations are superficial staining of rock outcrops, however in two locations, Rooiels and Hout Bay, there existed deep vein deposits of high enough grade manganese which lent themselves to artisinal (small scale) mining.

It was only by 1909 that the difficulties surrounding mining had been overcome, and ore began to...

Long before man ever travelled up the pass, herds of eland, searching for greener pastures, crossed here in the winter months. Traditionally migratory elephants led by the herds matriarch, would make their way down to their grazing grounds on the Cape Flats. A Khoi tribe, known as Gantauwers (People of the Eland) also followed this pass. They called the path T’kanna Ouwe or Gantouw, ‘Gan’ being the Khoi word for eland and ‘touw’ the Khoi word for path. Later travellers also took up this meaning, calling it the Elandspat (path of the eland). Later still - ox wagon travellers called it the ‘Hottentots Holland Kloof.

It was early cattle buyers like Hendrik Lacus and Jeronimus Cruse, sent in 1663 by Zacharias Wagenaar - the replacement for Jan van Riebeeck as Commander at the Cape - who were possibly the first white people to brave the path over the kloof.

From Cape Town to the Pass

It is worth noting, although often overlooked, that the Gantouw Pass was not the only obstacle that had to be overcome in order to leave Cape Town and head east. The Cape Flats was a notorious place for the bogging down of wagons in thick sand. As a consequence there was no ‘one road’ across the Flats, as wagon drovers tried not to follow the tracks of a previous vehicle that had broken through the thin top stable layer of sand.

Even on the lower hills, passing the present Sir Lowry’s Pass village, waggons had...